Billy's Tap Room in parking lot dispute with Ormond neighbor

Jim Abbott @JimAbbottwrites

Friday

Sep 7, 2018 at 6:08 PMSep 7, 2018 at 6:08 PM

ORMOND BEACH — Billy’s Tap Room & Grill has been a fixture on Granada Boulevard for nearly 100 years, but a dispute with a next-door developer over the use of a parking lot now threatens the restaurant’s ability to stay in business, its owners say.

“We’re just trying to save Billy’s,” said Douglas Rand, who reopened and operated the iconic restaurant in 2011 and bought it in 2014 with his wife, Lillian. “It’s very hard to operate a business if you don’t have the proper materials.”

For decades, trucks for waste pick-up, recycling and propane delivery had used the parking lot behind neighboring businesses to the west of the Tap Room to reach the restaurant.

That changed when Heaster Family Limited Partnership, developer of the Gaslamp Shoppes on Granada, an assortment of boutique businesses just to the west of the Tap Room, informed the Rands in May that it had withdrawn its permission to allow such deliveries via the parking lot that is their private property, according to city records.

“My client has a clean deed to, and title insurance on, its property, neither of which shows easements for Mr. Rand’s private going concern,” Jonathan “Jake” Kaney III, the Heasters’ attorney, wrote in an email in response to an interview request from The News-Journal.

“Moreover, Mr. Rand’s deed and title work also show no easements,” Kaney wrote. “And, there are no recorded easements. Finally, the City has affirmatively stated multiple times that it has no unrecorded easements. In short, Mr. Rand has no right to use my client’s property for free.”

Kaney also pointed out that the Rands had refused a contract offer from the Heasters to use the parking-lot property for $400 a year, “less than the actual financial cost to my client of Mr. Rand’s intended use,” Kaney said. The Rands responded that the contract contained clauses that exposed them to unreasonable liability.

Formerly known as Shoppes At Granada, the shopping plaza building was bought for $500,000 in 2013 by developers Lewis and Angela Heaster and renovated with flickering carriage lamps and period lights, fashionable overhangs and an updated paint scheme.

At Billy's Tap Room, the Rands took over the operation in 2011, reopening and running the restaurant after it had been closed in 2010 when a previous owner filed for bankruptcy. The Rands bought the restaurant for $1 million in 2014 and have invested roughly $400,000 into the operation since then, they said. It wasn't until the Heasters bought the plaza next door that access to the parking lot became an issue, the Rands said.

In his response, Kaney pledged to defend his client’s title in court, if necessary, and threatened to sue The News-Journal “if you defame my client or put a cloud on his title.” He suggested that the restaurant owner contacted the media because he realized he didn’t have a legal case. "Govern yourselves accordingly," Kaney wrote.

Twice in his email, Kaney called the restaurant owner a “grifter,” stating that “Mr. Rand wants something for nothing, like a grifter. But, real property law in Florida doesn’t work that way.” He pointed out that trucks servicing businesses in the Gaslamp Shoppes don't use the lot behind the plaza, either.

Meanwhile, the Rands are scrambling for ways to receive essential services — waste pick-up, recycling and propane deliveries — for the restaurant. The couple and their attorney, Kirk Bauer, are considering legal actions such as a court-mandated prescriptive easement, based on how the property has been used historically. Such rulings aren’t a sure thing, the Rands said, and likely would require $20,000 to $30,000 in court costs.

“This is our life savings,” said Doug Rand, adding that his restaurant staff has re-routed many supply deliveries to the Tap Room to avoid the Gaslamp Shoppes parking lot. Twice-weekly waste pick-up, weekly recycling and twice-monthly propane deliveries are the only services that use the lot, he said.

“We’ve tried to be good neighbors,” said Rand, who also operates a second well-known restaurant, Doug & Lil’s Potato Patch, in DeLand. “We’ve reduced the number of vendors going through his property, reduced the number of employees going through his property. Until he bought the property, we had no issues, nor did any other owners over many years.”

Kaney responded that those deliveries would result in business disruption and wear-and-tear on the parking lot from more than 200 visits annually.

"That parking lot wasn’t cheap and it won’t be cheap the next time it needs to be resurfaced," Kaney said. "Moreover, my client does not have garbage or recycling trucks drive over its rear parking lot in order to service its tenants. That is only Mr. Rand."

In the meantime, “No Trespassing” signs directed at the restaurant have been erected in the Gaslamp Shoppes parking lot. Last week, the Heasters installed locks on a privacy fence that now blocks access to outdoor space on the restaurant property containing a dumpster and industrial propane tank. The restaurant owners don’t have keys or combinations to the locks.

“What if we have an emergency here?” Rand said. “What if there’s a fire?”

For trash pick-up, the Rands now use six 90-gallon cans that the couple has been told will be wheeled by sanitation workers along a narrow sidewalk from behind the restaurant to Granada Boulevard.

Officials at St. James Episcopal Church, with property directly behind the restaurant, have agreed to cut an opening in an existing fence so that propane trucks can fill the Tap Room tank from the church parking lot.

“It’s hard enough running a business without all this,” Rand said. “I never thought I’d have to deal with this in a business that has been here for 95 years.”

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